


Three Little Angels (I Still Hear You In My Dreams)

by flipflop_diva



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Christmas Presents, F/F, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Incest, Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:04:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3119525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucius wanted to give Narcissa the perfect Christmas present. This wasn't ever what she would have asked for — but it might just be all she needs. Set during Deathly Hallows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Little Angels (I Still Hear You In My Dreams)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [etoilecourageuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilecourageuse/gifts).



> To my dearest, Avilove! This one was of the hardest fics I've written this (last) year, but I wanted to make it perfect for you. I hope you enjoy. Thank you for being one of the best friends a girl could have. I love you! <33333
> 
> And to Crystal, thank you for the beta and all the support. You are amazing, and I also love you!

He had been spending more time away from her lately, disappearing for long stretches without a word and returning without an explanation. The few times she had inquired, he had brushed off her words like they were insignificant.

“Nothing for you to worry about, my dear.”

His words unsettled her, not because she didn’t trust him — of course she did! She trusted him more than she trusted herself. She trusted him with her life and that of their son’s — but because the separation, and the distance, that seemed to be growing between them, both physically and emotionally, was beginning to take its toll, and she couldn’t help but feel like she was slowly losing herself and everything in her life that mattered.

She wanted to blame so much of it on the war effort, but that felt like a cowardly way to see things. Didn’t she want to support the cause of the Death Eaters? Didn’t she want the Dark Lord to reign? Of course she did! It was all she and Lucius had hoped for once upon a time. But the fear that was in the air, the tension … sometimes it was just too much.

She knew these were thoughts she could never speak aloud, thoughts that could get her killed just by their very presence in her mind, but still she thought them, still she wished that all this would end and they could return to their lives, her and Lucius and Draco, with an occasional appearance by Bellatrix, and they wouldn’t have to worry about people betraying them or them accidentally betraying others or Death Eaters overrunning their home and the Dark Lord showing up unannounced. She wouldn’t have to live in fear that one wrong move would mean death — not her death, for she didn’t care about that, but the death of her husband, of her son, of her one remaining sister. She had already lost so much, given up so much for the sake of family and duty and _what you were expected to do_ and she could not bear to think of sacrificing any more.

But the more Lucius disappeared from her — the more he seemed to retreat far, far away from her — the more she worried that should the war ever end, it would be too late. Perhaps there was no going back at all. Perhaps this was her life now, destined to be spent watching those she loved retreat into places she could not follow.

One night, a week before Christmas day, she could take it no longer. It had been a hard day, a dark day, the Dark Lord calling for everyone, using her and Lucius’ parlor once more as the meeting point, then demanding to know why there was no new information on Potter and his sidekicks, why those kids had not yet been captured or killed, why his supposed loyal followers weren’t doing more to hunt them down. How hard was it to find three whiny teenagers? The Ministry was firmly under Death Eater control, but there were still witches and wizards out there fighting against them, and as long as those three — especially Potter himself — were alive, they would continue to do so. It was beyond tiring, for all of them. The Dark Lord wanted answers, demanded them in fact, but there were none to give, just empty promises and hallow apologies, and he had not been pleased. He had threatened them all that he expected better results and then he had vanished in a whirl of green and black that seemed far more terrifying than anything else had been in a while.

“See what you all did!” Bellatrix had shrieked at them after his departure, upset that her Lord had not seen her efforts on his behalf, and it had taken all of Narcissa’s strength not to snap at her sister. She loved Bellatrix, she did, loved her dearly, but sometimes she felt like she was looking at a stranger instead of the big sister who had once whispered into her ear in the dark of night and promised to protect her, promised to love her forever, as she stroked her hair and taught her things only sisters can.

“We are doing all that we can,” Lucius had answered instead of Narcissa, and Bellatrix had turned to him, eyes wild.

“Obviously you are not! You are doing nothing!”

“How dare you! You have no right. Get out of my house!”

‘Lucius,” Narcissa had started, lifting her hand to touch her husband’s arm. “Please-” But he pulled his arm away before she could reach him.

“I don’t care if she’s your sister,” he snapped. “She needs to learn to respect others.”

“It’s almost Christmas,” Narcissa had sighed. Lucius looked at her, his glare almost withering, a glare that he did often use on her, his wife, and she could not help but to take it personally although she knew the reason behind it was but mere stress. Beside them, Bellatrix cackled.

“And since when do we care about Christmas, sister dear?” she said, her voice almost mocking. “Since we were children far too young to truly know those who lived among us? Please. Christmas means nothing when we are so close to victory!”

Narcissa wanted to argue with her, wanted to suggest that maybe it was who they were now that neither of them understood, wanted to remind her sister that Mother had always told them not to lose sight of the things that mattered — family, honor, duty, _love_ — but the words would not form and then it was too late. Bellatrix  
had turned her attention to reprimanding other Death Eaters and Lucius had retreated to wherever he spent his time and Narcissa was alone, standing by herself in the middle of her own parlor, no husband and no sister and no son to keep her company or lend her support.

So when Lucius made an appearance in their bedroom later that night, she could no longer keep it inside. Not anymore. 

“I need to know why you have been hiding from me.”

Lucius looked up at her words, startled. His hands had been in the middle of undoing his black silk robes in order to change for bed, but his motions paused as he met her eyes. “I am not hiding from you, my dear. Why would you suggest such a thing?”

Narcissa shook her head, pressed her hands together like she were praying — if she were a woman who prayed — and forced out the words she knew she must say. “Please don’t lie to me. Do you take me for a fool, one who does not notice how you spend as little time as possible with me as you can? How you always disappear without a word and refuse to speak of where you are going? How you have been doing this for well past a fortnight now?”

She stood up from the bed and walked over to him, scared to hear the truth come from his lips but needing to be close to him all the same. She reached out to touch his cheek and he did not move away from the gesture. 

“I know this war has been hard on all of us,” she said, “but if it is work for the cause you are doing, please let me in. I can help. You know you can trust me.”

Lucius reached up, covered her hand against his cheek with his own soft, warm one, his undressing by now forgotten and his eyes soft and concerned. “How can you think I do not trust you?”

“How can _you_ think I do not notice what is happening to us?”

He shook his head, both their hands still pressed to his skin. “You do not understand.”

“Then please tell me! I beg of you!”

“I can’t.”

“No, I don’t believe that. You _can_ tell me. I am not a fool you can brush aside. I am your wife! Tell me now. You know I deserve to know.”

“This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.”

“Tell me what? Lucius, please!”

He must have heard the desperation in her voice, her frustration too much to hide, and thus Lucius squeezed the hand she had to his cheek with his, took hold of it and brought her fingers to his mouth, brushing over her knuckles with his lips. “If you are going to insist, then you must let me show you.”

Narcissa frowned. “Show me what?” she asked, not understanding why her husband was looking her so curiously.

“You will see,” Lucius answered. “Trust me.”

•••

He waited until they were both dressed in their night robes, and then he led her through the manor, not bothering to light any candles nor even use his wand to guide their way. He just took hold of her hand and walked through the rooms, making sure she was following close behind.

At the door to the dungeon, he paused. “Please know it’s not perfect yet,” he said. “I did not want you to see it this way.” And then he opened the door, whispered a soft “ _lumos_ ” and made his way down the stairs, her hand still tucked in his.

The dungeon below Malfoy Manor was huge, almost as wide as the house itself, containing all sorts of secrets Narcissa had never had any interest in knowing fully about. Lucius had told her, time and time again, that there was nothing to worry about, and she had taken him at his word. 

When the Dark Lord had returned, she had heard whispered conversations from other Death Eaters about prisoners and lockdowns, but again, she had paid no mind. Lucius, though, did not seem intent now on showing her people withering away in their dungeon, and she was thankful she heard no sounds that indicated anyone else was even in the vicinity. Instead she followed her husband deeper and deeper under the house, winding down halls, until they came to a plain wooden door with a small lock on the handle.

Lucius stopped in front of the door and then seemed to take a very long breath, perhaps to calm himself or maybe to build up courage, and then he turned to her, and gently took her hands in his. “Are you quite sure about this?” he asked, and she nodded without any hesitation.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to know what you have been doing, where you have been going. We can’t keep secrets from each other, not now. I need you to let me in.”

He dropped her hands and turned back to the door.

“ _Alohomora_ ,” he whispered as he pointed his wand, and the door swung inward. Lucius moved to the side, gesturing Narcissa to walk past him. She glanced at him, saw the uneasy expression on his face, but did as she was told.

It was like walking back into her past. 

The dungeon — if it could even be called that anymore — was no longer a place of stone walls and concrete floors but an exact replica of the sitting room of the house she had grown up in, decorated now for Christmas with floating candles and bunches of mistletoe and a Christmas tree nearly ten feet high garnished with ornaments that she hadn’t seen in years. 

She felt herself drawn toward the tree and she could do nothing to stop her feet from moving her in front of it, just as she could not stop her hand from reaching out and touching the glistening silver balls, the golden hearts and the three little white angels — two with long dark hair and one with blonde — that were in a prominent spot right in the very center.

The same spot they had always been in, for as long as she could remember them being there.

Three little ornaments. The three of them. Maman’s little angels, she used to say — Cissy, Andy and Bella.

Narcissa felt tears spring to her eyes as she stared down at the porcelain angel ornaments, the very same ones — or so it seemed — that she and her sisters had unwrapped every year, had placed carefully on the tree side by side by side at the same time as their parents had laughed and drank spiced cider behind them, carols filling the room and the scent of spice cake and candy cane pungent in the air. Until the year their mother had thrown the ornaments to the ground, shattering them, and crying. The year no Christmas decorations went up and carols were replaced by their mother’s stony silence and Bella’s angry rants. The year Cissy tried desperately to hide the tears that threatened to fall every night from her eyes as the pain of betrayal seemed to sting fresh and raw each time the sun went down.

The year Andy had betrayed them all by turning her back on them. The year Cissy had found comfort in the dark of night in Bella’s arms and also her touch, until her eldest sister, too, had abandoned her to wed the man she was expected to. The year Narcissa’s whole life had changed, from one of naïve innocence to one weary with experience.

But standing here now, in this room that drew her back into her past, Narcissa could not help but to pull the three small ornaments off the tree, hold them cupped in her hands as memories washed over her of laughter and tears, of love and betrayal. She turned to face her husband, her dear husband, who was watching her with a mixture of fear and concern and devotion, and she stared at him as she felt tears fall unbidden down her cheeks.

“How did you get these?” she whispered, her voice sounding faint and odd, even to her own ears. “Mother broke them years ago.”

Lucius looked almost embarrassed at her question. Her husband, who was never embarrassed by anything, looking away from her for a second, his hand tightening and loosening almost instinctively around his wand.

“I found photographs,” he finally said. “I remembered you talking about them, about your childhood Christmases. I wanted … I wanted to give you something happy this year because I know this year has been rough on you. On us.”

“You wanted to give me my childhood back?” Narcissa asked, her brow arching as she tried to understand.

“I wanted to give you your sisters back,” Lucius said. “Maybe not Bella, but …”

“Andy?”

Lucius nodded.

“That is impossible.”

“It’s not,” he said. “I have it figured out. No one will know.”

Narcissa stared at him, disbelieving what she was hearing. He couldn’t mean … 

“You are not suggesting what I think you are suggesting, are you, Lucius Malfoy?” she whispered, not daring to let her voice rise any louder, not even here, tucked away in a room so far underground no one else could surely hear them. “You are not suggesting that you would bring my sis … that you would bring Andromeda here, to our house, where the Dark Lord frequents, as some sort of a Christmas present, are you? A woman who wants nothing to do with us nor us of her?”

“That’s not true.”

“What part is not true? You coming up with this plan that would surely lead to our deaths if anyone knew, or Andromeda considering us right up there with the plague of the earth?”

“She loves you. And you love her. I know you do.”

“I do no such thing.”

“Cissy …”

“Lucius, please. I know your heart is in the right place, and this …” She gestured to the room, to the tree, to the candles in the air. “This is more magnificent than I could ever have dreamed, but Lucius, stop here. There can be no reconciliation, even if it were safe, which is not.”

“I’ve talked to her.”

Narcissa froze, her mouth open, her eyes wide. She stared at her husband, the words echoing in her head but not penetrating her mind.

“I’ve talked to her,” he repeated. 

“You talked …. to Andromeda?”

“I have.”

“WHY?!?!” The anger exploded out of her, out of her chest like a volcano erupting, hot and furious, the emotions bubbling to the surface at once. What was he thinking, talking to a blood traitor at a time like this? Talking to a girl who had abandoned her years ago, never looking back to wonder about her little sister or what would come of her, simply not caring as she only looked after her own whims and desires. How could he? How could he talk to her, ask her to come here, ask her if she wanted to ….

She sank to the ground, her legs no longer capable of holding her, sank to the ground right there in the middle of her childhood sitting room replica, her hands coming up to wrap around herself.

He had talked to her sister. He had _talked_ to her sister. Her _sister_. Who she hadn’t talked to in so many years she had lost count. Who she hadn’t seen in so many years she sometimes wondered if the picture of her in her mind was really her at all or just a memory she had long ago made up. 

He had talked to her sister, and from the look on his face, the way he was staring at her …

“She said she would come?” Narcissa asked, and she could barely get the words out, could barely make herself heard. Her arms tightened around her body, but her tremors wouldn’t stop. She just sat there, on the floor, shaking, unable to do anything else, anything else at all. 

“She said she would come,” Lucius said, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, Narcissa let herself sob.

•••

She was beyond nervous. Her fingers, jammed in the pockets of her robes, wrapped around her wand, wouldn’t stop shaking. Her stomach felt like it was simultaneously tied in knots but also a gaping empty pit. It was a struggle to keep her features calm, her voice steady, to act like nothing was wrong or different when in fact her nerves were on edge and any wrong turn could have them sent to a fate worse than death.

She had argued with Lucius, told him not to follow through, told him it wasn’t worth the risk, but even as she had raised her voice to counter his every point, she knew it was a not a battle she could win. For how could she win when she wasn’t even sure she wanted to, when with every passing second the very thought of seeing her sister again, of being in the same room with her again, filled her with equal amounts of excitement and anxiety, equal amounts of hope and dread?

When her sister had escaped out the window that cold fall night so many years ago, when she had turned her back on the family, when their parents had stood in her room the next morning and declared her dead to them, when her name had been ripped from family tapestries like she had never even been born, Narcissa had done what she had to do, what she was expected to do, and thrown her away too, had declared her sister lost to her forever, never to be seen or spoken to or spoken of again.

But now … now, in a few short hours time, she could perhaps see her again, touch her again, look into her eyes once again …

It felt like a dream, but also like a nightmare, and Narcissa couldn’t decide if she feared going through with it or not going through with it more.

But at one minute after the stroke of midnight of Christmas Eve night, she slipped her dress robes on over her nightdress, picked up her wand and walked slowly through the manor, wondering with each step if she should turn back, if she was making the wrong decision, but never faltering in her forward progress.

She slipped easily down the dungeon stairs, made her way quickly through the maze of halls, and then soon, almost too soon, there was the plain wooden door with the small lock on the handle just in front of her. She sucked in a breath of air, tried to steady her nerves, compose her facial features to give nothing away, and then before she could change her mind, she pulled her wand from her pocket, murmured “ _Alohomora_ ” and then she was stepping back into her childhood once more.

But this time _she_ was there. 

Older, so much older, but still so much the same. The same piercing eyes. The same dark hair. The same kind smile. 

_She_ was there. Andy. Her Andy. Her Andy who she thought she would never see again.

Narcissa wanted to yell at her, to scream at her, to let loose years upon years of frustration and rage and disappointment, wanted to explode on her the speech she had long ago written in her mind for if this moment ever came, yet at the same time, she wanted to run to her, throw her arms around her, hold her in her embrace.

Instead she did neither of these things, did something different altogether, something she would almost be ashamed or embarrassed by if only she had the strength. She began to cry. 

A hand flew to her mouth and tears began to flow and a harsh deep sob escaped from her throat, and there she stood, before the sister she had not too long ago thought she would never lay eyes on again, not knowing whether she was happy or sad or angry or relieved.

But it didn’t matter because Andy, her Andy, was crossing the room toward her, and time was disappearing, the lost years vanishing, as Andy threw her arms around Narcissa’s shoulders, pulled her in close to her chest, and above the sound of her own tears, Narcissa could hear only one phrase, repeated over and over, until it was the only thing that mattered: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” 

•••

Lucius was waiting for her when she returned to their bedroom, so many hours later the sky was already streaked pink and gold with bits of sun. His eyes looked weary, like he hadn’t slept, and he reached out his hands to her when she walked in, pulled her toward him, against his chest, wrapped his strong arms around her tired body.

“How was it?” he asked softly, his lips in her hair.

Narcissa reached up her own hand, felt her lips, still stinging with the taste of her sister, pictured once more in her mind every touch, every embrace, heard once more every apology, every declaration of love, and she relaxed against her husband.

“Perfect,” was all she said. “Happy Christmas, darling.”

“Happy Christmas to you.”


End file.
